I am migrating my automation system over from Smartthings Hub ver 2 to Hubitat C-7. My concern is with the Aeotec ZW056 doorbell, Within Smartthings, I had the doorbell linked to all my sensors so that an individual MP3 file plays when a sensor is triggered. For example; "The garage door has been opened." I would like to retain that capability within the Hubitat system.
I understand that the ZW056 does have a driver compatible with Hubitat, but before disconnecting it from Smartthings and pairing with Hubitat, I want to confirm that the ability to trigger the playing of specific audio files is part of that capability. I am not interested in alarm functionality. Otherwise, the sensors will have to remain connected to Smartthings. I hope I can move everything to Hubitat.Preformatted text
Since I have gotten to replies to my initial post in 24 hours, it seems there are few people who have tried using the Aeotech Gen 5 doorbell with Hubitat.
While waiting, I have been checking out some other possibilities to provide similar functionality. I have a number of Amazon Echo Alexa devices throughout my home. I understand that there an Alexa text to speech skill that can be set up to that a sensor event can trigger Alexa to say a specific phrase. Has anyone set it up this way and if so, is the response time appropriate. If someone breaks into my home, I do not want a 10 second delay before Alexa announces the breech.
Since I got no responses to my initial plea, I decide to go ahead and reset my Aeotec ZQ056A doorbell and pair it with Hubitat. After a few attempts, I was successful. I found that my custom mp3 files were still available in flash memory and they could be accessed through Hubitat. Now all I have to do is figure out how to trigger them based on sensor events. I think I can figure that out on my own. However, with 18 sensors to link, it might take a while.
My new Lutron hub is supposed to arrive tomorrow. Once those switches and dimmers are migrated over, I can disconnect Smartthings.
Here is an example using Rule Machine, choose Send, Speak or Log a Message. The message to send is the file index to play and select the Aeotec Doorbell from the Speech Device.
The sound files are stored in the device, copy/delete via a computer, just like a USB drive. They will stay even doing a reset (and you can't get the files back if you delete the files, that's not important anyway)
Thanks for your response. Being new to this community forum, I had no idea how long it might take for someone to respond. With other forums I frequent, 24 hours is typically sufficient. Now I know this one is slower to respond; I guess it has fewer members.
I was a little confused at first as I was expecting to use the play command to play the mp3 files stored on the Aeotec internal storage. I thought the speak command was designed to be used to speak a typed phrase. Once I figured out that you had to direct the speak command to the number slot of the mp3 file, everything fell into place.
Hopefully, my Lutron Hub Pro will arrive tomorrow. The regular Lutron hub worked well with Smartthings, but apparently not with Hubitat. Had I not missed that distinction, I never would have purchased Hubitat in the first place. That was an expense I had not anticipated. Hopefully, Hubitat will prove its worth.
Yeah sorry - I missed your post... I think that with the ever expanding community if your post doesn't find someone fast it gets put down the list and may get lost. That's happened to me on several occasions.
I have the same Aeotec doorbell but am only using the siren part. It works great. I have it tied into my Ring doorbell and with my Aeotec Recessed door sensors. I play different custom tones for each thing. The custom tones bit is why I am still using it.
edit: adding @rwclements228 to this post for extra alert goodness!
One of the reasons I added my second post after 24 hours was that nobody had responded and my original post had moved well down the list of new postings. I figured I would bump it up to the top by adding another post to the thread.
Once set up properly, the Gen 5 doorbell works great. I have it connected so that each of my sensors triggers a corresponding mp3 file that I created specifically for that purpose. I am planning to add a few new sensors, so I need to generate some new mp3 files for them.
The current Gen 6 doorbell/siren does include 10 different alarm sounds that can be triggered. However, it has lost the ability to do custom sounds. Perhaps I was one of the few who took full advantage of that feature.
There does seem to be some lag sometimes or duplicate sounds every once in a while. It has certainly gotten better over time and with the newer routers, certainly my C-4 seemed to have more issues but that was likely a resource problem.
I'm also using the Aeotec Gen 5 doorbell for its ability to store custom mp3 tracks; I've managed to program 99 of them to signal various conditions (and it actually can do a fairly credible Westminster chime if you can find a track with a long enough decay).
I like being able to generate my text to speech alerts with a mixed-in 'attention' tone (similar to what department stores and airports used to do); Audacity is great for this. They're a lot less likely to be missed than a random Echo or Google voice popping up out of nowhere.
I found a nice alert tone to use a the beginning of my mp3 files. Then I used the Zabaware text to speech software to produce the custom notifications. Finally, I combined them using Audacity so I could control the attack and decay. I also adjusted the volume level within Audacity so I would not have to do that in the automations. Some alerts like "The laundry door has been opened" are triggered routinely during the day, so the alert tone is not obnoxious and volume is moderate.
I hope alarms such as "There is a water leak in the laundry room" will never be triggered, but if they are, I want to hear it immediately, even if I am sound asleep. thus, it is accompanied by an alarm at full volume.
The Gen 6 doorbell/siren is much louder than the older Gen 5, but the older one is still loud enough to wake me if necessary.
I use Gen 5 for notification with custom record speech for different triggers, that's much better than remembering what sound is what in case of Gen 6.
The biggest downside is it's not loud enough for siren purpose (yes, I know Aeotec has a separate louder Siren 5 for such purpose), I have to manually adjust volume (wave) to louder in software for some alert speech like closing garage door which is till nothing like Gen 6 loudness.
Gen 6 is much louder (because Doorbell 6 and Siren 6 is the same), but I seriously doubt its build quality and reliability. I think it pushed its tiny speaker too much. At max 100% volume, the sound is distorting which might be the reason of my speaker failure and I saw Amazon Reviews some said they kept that at 70% only. And it's so hot ta the back that I can't find why such simple thing should be.
The one I got had 1 wire of the rechargeable battery loosened. I use it powered anyway, so I just left it like that. And just a week ago it stopped making any sound, even the status said playing. Reset it and even worse, very often have no response to the command.
Turn out the cable it came with is bad. I tried another one. I can now load sounds. Yeah! I still had to do a factory reset to get it to be included. It appears the button is not Z-Wave and just plays whatever you set for that sound to be. I have no idea how sounds are assigned to numbers.
There is some weird Speech command that has text volume and voice parameters. I can guess at the first two but have no clue what to put into the voice one to make anything work. OK, text is not text but the sound number, what is voice?? Why is is there? When you pull it as a command sometimes you can set volume and sometimes not. ...
On the Aeotec Gen 5 doorbell, the first sound is default. I do not use the doorbell button, so I use a silent. wav sound in the first slot. After than, the sounds are numbered internally according to the order in which the sounds are uploaded to the device. Thus, to make sure you always know which sound is which, I have all of my sounds in a folder. Each file is named using a number and as description. For example "10_frontdooropen.wav" and "00_Silence.wav". You can use either wav or mp3 files.
Then when I upload files, I delete everything loaded onto the doorbell and then start uploading files in sequence starting with 00, 01, 02.... xx. That way, when setting up your rules for announcements you know that everything will match.
It is OK to add a new sound file onto the end of the list, but if you can a file, it is best to upload everything from the beginning.
The first sound only happen when you plug it in. You can not determine which it selects. The order changes every time I adds sounds. Right now, i is some duck quacks. I do not use the doorbell either. Maybe if I start over I could control the order but I only have 20 sound and most are generated vocal that I normalized and converted to stereo so that you can clearly hear them without too much distortion. Mine was bought used, only choice these days. It still had sounds on it. Some I replaced with better versions, other I kept, a few I removed. You also have to put about a half second of silence on the end or it will cut off the end of the sound. I did my editing in Gold Wave in a PC.
More likely a bad sample, I got a General Lee horn sound you can hear for at least 50 yards. It scared the crap out of my cats while testing what volume to play it at. They were not bothered by any other one but that one drives them nuts. I have to normalize and generated vocals. Also, samples in stereo play twice as loud as mono samples. I think it combines them. I have my volume levels anywhere from 10% to 100% depending on the sample.
It work fine I only have 20 sound but most are announcements I generated on some web site and then edited. I had to ad 1/2 second, convert to stereo and slightly in crease the volume level.
